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Traffic Secrets Summary: 23 Ways To Get More Website Traffic
You might be thinking: “Why would I want 23 ways to get traffic? I only need one.”
I’m gonna get to that.
But first, you gotta know how the 2018 movie Avengers: Infinity War inspired me to write my book Traffic Secrets.
The movie ends when Thanos snaps his fingers and half the people in the universe disappear.
I watched this movie with my Inner Circle members and after we started talking about Google and Mark Zuckerberg. Imagine if Zuckerberg snapped his fingers and half the businesses that rely on Facebook ads died overnight?
This is exactly what happened to me with my first online business.
The 2003 ‘Google slap’ increased the ad spend for an offer I was running by 100% overnight and half the entrepreneurs I knew (who were making a killing) never recovered.
Trust me. Relying on one source of traffic is a huge gamble.
All it takes is for Thanos to snap his fingers… and it’s over.
Below you’ll find 23 ways I’ve learned to get repeatable, affordable and scalable traffic to build ClickFunnels into a business generating $200M every year – keep reading until the end to learn how I master each new algorithm or new platform with ease!
#3 – Instagram profile aka your ‘foundation’
#4 – Instagram TV for high-value videos over 60 seconds long
#5 – Instagram Stories are your ‘personal reality show’
#6 – Instagram Story ‘Highlights’ Webinar Hack
BONUS TRAFFIC SECRET – Instagram Live
#7 – Instagram shout-outs to buy your way in
#8 – Facebook Profile and Using ‘Conversation Starters’
#9 – Facebook Fan Page
#10 – Facebook Groups for Hanging Out with Customers
#11 – Facebook Messenger to Chat to Your Customers
#12 – Creating your ‘Skyscraper’ Article
#13 – Emailing to Win Backlinks for Your Skyscraper Article
#14 – Guest Posting to Win Backlinks to Your Skyscraper Article
#15 – Advertising on Other Sites to Win Traffic to Your Website
BONUS TRAFFIC SECRET – Getting Paid Traffic to Your Skyscraper Articles
PART 1 – PAID ADS
It blew my mind how people like Perry Belcher (co-founder of DigitalMarketer.com) could set up a profile on Twitter, gain 100k followers and then make $1 million from a single webinar.
All done without a dollar spent on advertising.
I spent the years after Twitter’s 2006 launch struggling to make any sales on social media…
So I called Perry.
Here’s what I remember Perry telling me:
“When you go to a party, do you just talk about what you do? ‘Hey I’m Perry, and I sell stuff. Would you like to buy some stuff from me?’ No, of course not. If you did, you’d be the biggest jerk at the party… And that’s what you’ve been doing on social media, Russell. That’s why it’s not working for you.”
Perry completely changed my mindset about posting on social media.
Here’s the Doodle I made after talking to Perry.
Perry told me to think of social media like making friends at a party.
If you get along then maybe they’ll swing by your house some time – this ‘house’ is your profile page and it’s where you can offer them some free content (think of it like offering guests some chips and dip) like a lead magnet, a webinar, a book or your newsletter list.
Your sales pitch is not welcome at the party.
But you can sell at your ‘home’.
Now, 21 of the 23 traffic secrets here don’t require any paid advertising.
But you have to think about social media like a ‘networking party’ or you’ll fall into the same trap I did of turning people away by spoiling the fun.
In reality there’s only 2 types of ads you need to run to get traffic online.
You can use these to amplify any of the organic strategies that follow to sky-rocket your success.
#1 – Prospecting Ads to ‘Hook’ New People
During the first 10 years of running my own businesses I didn’t run any paid ads.
We relied on affiliates or growth hacks or offers and we made a bunch of sales… but once a promotion was over our traffic dried up.
To get consistent traffic, we had to figure out paid ads.
The kind of ad you can start running today and never stop running is called the ‘prospecting ad’ and you can set aside 80% of your advertising budget for this.
Your goal is not to make a sale.
Instead you’re just trying to get engagement – you want to see if your target audience watches your videos, clicks on your links or comments, likes and shares your promoted posts.
You also want to be testing out as many different hooks as possible and constantly bettering your engagement.
Russell, why would I want to spend 80% of my budget on ads that don’t make me any money?
Trust me, this will all make sense in secret #2!
Here’s what John Parkes (John has headed up the paid advertising division at ClickFunnels since day #1) says:
“When you put up your first ads, they’re almost always going to a colder audience, a group of people who don’t know you and don’t know what you have to offer… When you’re getting started you have no other choice… But if you hold strong, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
That light at the end of tunnel is our second paid ad strategy: the retargeting ad.
And it’s here where John says ‘you’ll see 80 percent of your results while only using 20 percent of your budget’.
#2 – Retargeting Ads to Create New Customers
If you’re prospecting none stop here’s what you should be seeing:
- New people begin following your social media channels
- New people begin clicking on your links
- New people begin watching your videos
- New people begin subscribing to your email list
- New people begin buying – but not necessarily enough to cover your ads budget
And these aren’t just any new people… they’re people who have already shown an interest in your business and its offers.
They haven’t bought anything.
But it’s so much more cost-effective to run ads to warmer audiences already familiar with you.
This is called a ‘retargeting funnel’.
The math may seem counter-intuitive, so here’s John explaining how the funnel creates new customers in an ideal situation:
- Let’s say you spend $2,000 on ads.
- From that, you get 100,000 people to see your ad.
- The ad performs well and 4% of these people engage with the ad (4,000 people).
- And 2% of the original 100,000 click the link in the ad and go to your funnel (2,000 click).
- Of these people, 30% of them give you their email address (600 leads).
“Russell, those 60 buyers are nice but in my business it would barely make me a profit…”
This is where your retargeting ads come in.
Advertising platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads and more all let you create what are called ‘custom audiences’.
You can now start running more direct ads at a much lower cost to these people (if you spend $2,000 to reach 100,000 people then you’ll spend far less reaching 3,940 people).
The chance of making a sale is now much, much higher.
There’s a lot more to learn about how to create customer audiences and the kinds of hooks you should be running depending – I just want you to understand the concept of retargeting as it’s the key to profitable advertising.
If you want to learn more I go deep into this in my book Traffic Secrets.
Since this stuff is so important to your success I already bought your copy, I just ask that you cover shipping and handling.
PART 2 – INSTAGRAM
I spend about 5-10 minutes every day on Instagram.
But I’m not there just to scroll.
Here’s what I’m doing:
- I only follow accounts I want to learn from or engage with and comment on at least 10 of their posts per day
- I study the pictures from these accounts and focus on any that ‘hook’ me
- I read the captions and focus on any that make me want to take an action
- I look for cool ideas on ways they’re engaging people on Instagram Stories
- I check out where any swipe-ups push me to
- I funnel hack the funnels
- I message (DM) on at least 10 of my favorite entrepreneurs’ videos
I consider my time on Instagram to be ‘digging my well’ and I’m also becoming a better marketer at the same time – because I’m only following already really successful people.
It sounds harsh, but I’m not interested in following anyone who doesn’t contribute to what I want to learn.
Now let’s dig into the content I’m actually producing on Instagram.
#3 – Instagram Profile aka Your ‘Foundation’
When people find you on Instagram, the first place they’ll go is your bio.
You’ve got 150 characters to make an impression.
Your goal here is to get them to hit the ‘follow’ button and – if you’ve earned it – they’ll click on the one link you can put in your bio to enter directly into one of your funnels.
But before you can get people looking at your bio you first need to produce what I call ‘content hooks’.
These are your Instagram feed posts.
Don’t forget the concept of the ‘social network party’ here: your goal is not to sell, but to pop up in someone’s feed and say something that gets them to read, like, comment or follow your post back to your profile page and hit ‘follow’.
To this day I use Jenna Kutcher’s ‘JK5 Method’ framework to create my posts.
These are 5 categories of things you’re passionate about.
For me it’s:
- Family
- Funnels
- Faith
- Entrepreneurship
- Personal development
Here’s what Jenna says about the framework:
“When you adopt this method, you’ll not only create a versatile, well-rounded, and connected brand, but you’ll also create an interesting feed that earns you the ability to sell.”
I suggest you come up with your 5 topics and then create a new album on your phone for each category.
Just going back through old photos should help you fill your Instagram feed for months.
And what about the caption?
I only ever try to do three things with my captions: inspire, educate or entertain.
And what about the call-to-action (CTA)?
Remember, we’re not selling (yet). I make my CTA something that builds interaction like asking someone to ‘double tap’ or ‘hit the ‘like’ button’ or ‘post an emoji’ or ‘comment’ or maybe even ‘click the link in my bio’ if I want to bring someone into a funnel.
#4 – Instagram TV for High-value Videos
If you’re new to content creation you might be afraid of going on video at first.
But after you read how I use IGTV, I know you’re gonna be super excited to get started.
All the time when I’m making Instagram posts I keep mental notes of how people respond and constantly ask myself:
- What topics do people find interesting?
- What parts of my life or ideas do they want to know more about?
- What questions keep coming up?
That’s literally all I need to make a longer video than I know people are gonna watch!
I found the sweet spot for IGTV is 3-5 minutes.
So I spend that time answering these common questions or diving more deeply into a topic.
#5 – Instagram Stories are your ‘Personal Reality Show’
Instagram stories are just 15 seconds long and disappear after 24 hours.
“Russell, should I really spend my time creating video content that disappears?”
Of course!
I look at Instagram Stories as my personal reality show and throughout my day I make a quick video to share my highlights, things I’m excited about, moments with my kids, and I even made an Instagram Story every day while I was writing Traffic Secrets!
Can you guess how effective this is?
Because tens of thousands of people were watching those Instagram Stories it meant I have thousands anxiously waiting for a copy of the book to come out so they could buy it!
And because they were part of the process, they’re much more likely to buy.
Honestly, Instagram Stories are one of the most powerful ways to build a relationship with your audience that I have found.
I’ll also promote cool things I’m working on and include a CTA to go and buy a product.
But you need to know something…
You only get the ability to let people ‘swipe up’ and visit a link on your Instagram Stories when your account has grown to 10,000 followers.
I make 20-30 Instagram stories a day and at least one of them will include a swipe-up CTA.
But you’ve got to put the work in to build your followers first!
#6 – Instagram Story ‘Highlights’ Webinar Hack
Instagram Story Highlights show up under your bio and above your grid.
I’ve got a hack for you to sell a lot of products here.
About once a month I pick a product and post 15-20 Stories that follow a pre-scripted presentation designed to sell the product at the end.
I make a ton of sales on the day.
But… because I save this sequence as a highlight it will continue to sell for me every day.
You can check out a doodle of the webinar script below.
If you want to read more about each of the steps then I go through it in detail in my book Traffic Secrets – don’t forget, your free copy is already waiting for you!
Click here to get your copy (just cover shipping & handling).
BONUS TRAFFIC SECRET – Instagram Live
There’s one piece of Instagram I’m missing out on here: Instagram Live.
I actually purchased a second phone just to be able to go live on Facebook and Instagram at the same time.
Instagram Live is a great way to connect with your followers and you can use it to launch products or have an AMA (ask me anything) where you answer questions from your audience.
But since there’s so much similarity with Facebook Live I’m not going to go too deep on Instagram Live here.
Just know this: your Instagram Live videos are deleted after 24 hours.
On Facebook, your Lives stay up indefinitely and this means much more traffic and selling potential over there.
#7 – Instagram shout-outs to buy your way in
To grow your following on instagram you need to show up on your ideal customers’ channels.
How do you do that when you don’t have many followers?
My favorite solution is buying your way in by getting an influencer to give you a ‘shout-out’ – it’s basically a post where somebody tags your profile and tells their followers to check you out.
For example, when I was first starting out, I sent another entrepreneur a copy of my book 30 Days when it first came out.
I then paid her to do a shoutout.
Here’s what the result was:
- Shown to 82.8k followers
- Received 4,978 likes
- Drove 100s of new followers to my page
PART 3 – FACEBOOK
Most people spend hours and hours on Facebook just passively scrolling through cool photos, viral videos and updates from friends.
But used right, your Facebook feed becomes the best market research tool in the world.
My goal is to follow all the influencers in my market until I’m plugged into an ecosystem of 1 million people.
For example, if I follow 20 people each with a following of 30,000 – that’s 600,000 people.
This gives you a number of cool advantages:
- You’ll see every important conversation that your dream customers are engaging in
- You’ll see every ad being run to your ideal customers
- You’ll see the messages they’re exposed to
- You’ll see the people they connect with
- You’ll see the pains they have
- You’ll see the opportunities to serve them better
With that aside let’s jump into how you can produce content on Facebook to drive traffic to your own website.
#8 – Facebook Profile and Using ‘Conversation Starters’
Most of your interactions on Facebook will happen through your profile.
Facebook allows people to ‘follow’ your personal profile – but you have to turn it on in the settings.
Make sure you do otherwise you’ll only be allowed 5,000 ‘friends’!
There are three main areas to focus on with your Facebook Profile:
- Your cover photo – design a cover photo that represents you and your brand, but don’t put a CTA on there as it will ruin the social network party!
- Intro section – introduce yourself and your passions.
- Featured image – you can feature an image from a post you’ve made here (I use a picture of me with my three books) and when anyone clicks on it they’re taken to a post where I have links to the three books in the description so I can start filling my funnel.
Each post you make on Facebook is an opportunity to ‘hook’ someone.
The same JK5 framework I talked about in Traffic Secret #3 works well for Facebook posts.
In fact, it’s really important since Facebook will shut your personal profile down if it looks like you’re trying to operate it like a business page.
But there’s a trick I use to work about this AND fill my funnels.
I’ll usually create an engaging post and then add a CTA or a direct link in the comments section of my own post.
This avoids raising any Facebook warnings… and gets sales straight from my Facebook profile.
#9 – Facebook Fan Page
You need a Facebook ‘Page’ to do any advertising on the platform.
“Russell, this is confusing me now, do I need a personal page or a fan page then?”
I always say: you need both.
Your personal profile lets you get free, earned traffic while your fan page lets you buy traffic.
Here’s what ClickFunnels’ VP of Marketing Julie Stoian says:
“Think of your Facebook page as the Facebook version of your website. I only put the most curated and the best content on this page… My test for if something should be on my Page is this: Is this content good enough that I will spend at least $10-$20 to boost it?”
Often I’ll use my personal page to test out hooks and images and stories that resonate with people, and then turn that into content I can boost as a prospecting or retargeting ad.
See four types of content I’ll post and boost on my fan page:
- Produced value videos – these are videos I produce without any offer, but purely to increase engagement and let the Facebook algorithms know people love our content.
- Live value videos – these videos aren’t pre-produced, but are Facebook Live videos which Facebook tends to prefer over other kinds of video.
- Live perfect webinars – these videos are your big paydays, and are pre-scripted webinars that you launch as a Facebook Live with an offer at the end but which will stay on the platform and continue filling your funnels.
- Curated content from other platforms (reruns) – for these I’ll take content that’s working great on other platforms and repost it natively on Facebook for increased engagement.
After posting any of these on my fan page I’ll spend $10-20 boosting the content.
If any of these ads helps me make enough sales to break-even on my ad spend, then I’ll keep on running the ads until I start losing money.
#10 – Facebook Groups for Hanging Out with Customers
If you want to control the direction of your market, then you need to run the party.
You can do this with a Facebook Group.
The ClickFunnels (Official) group now has over 290k members!
Some of our top posts in the group get up to 50,000 impressions per day – and that’s all free, organic traffic.
I try to do a weekly ‘hangout’ in my group where I can talk to members and build personal relationships that help to get them super excited to be part of ClickFunnels.
We get over 1,000 people joining ClickFunnels every month directly from this group… so me jumping in once a week pays off.
I encourage every business to have their own Facebook Group and tend to it regularly.
#11 – Facebook Messenger to Chat to Your Customers
Facebook Messenger lets you send news and information directly to your subscribers via the Messenger app.
You can automate basic chats, and let a ‘chatbot’ sell your customers for you.
But you can’t be overly aggressive or Facebook will shut you down.
We rarely send out more than one message per week.
We’re always trying to add value and enhance users’ experience so we’ll do something like send a quiz or make interactive chat to solve specific problems – anything that keeps engagement high and complaints low.
There are three ways you can build you Messenger lists:
- Messenger pop ups – when people visit your fan page you can have Messenger pop up to start a conversation and add someone to your list.
- Landing page opt-in – you can have people select a box and opt-in to your Messenger lists on your landing pages.
- Lead magnets – you can offer a lead magnet and get people to comment with a specific keyword in the comments of one of your Facebook posts, and then send them the lead magnet through Messenger and add the person to your list.
PART 4 – GOOGLE
Ranking high on Google for a popular search time is like owning prime real estate.
You can literally make millions overnight.
But… I’m not going to tell you how to hack the Google algorithm because it’s constantly changing.
Backlinks, on-page optimization, search intent and mobile responsiveness are important but the point of this blogpost is teaching you to get traffic even when Google ‘snaps its fingers’!
So instead of writing content and hoping the Google algorithm blows some traffic your way…
I’m going to reveal secrets to manually get your content seen online.
#12 – Creating your ‘Skyscraper’ Article
Instead of buying backlinks I try to write blog posts that people naturally want to link back to – I call these ‘linkable assets’.
Here’s how I write a linkable asset.
I start by identifying a keyword that I want to rank for and then I scan the top 10 results to look for patterns in the types of posts that are being ranked.
They’re usually structured with something like ‘25 SEO Tools to Instantly Improve Your Marketing in 2023’ or ‘18 Things You Can Actually Eat on a Ketogenic Diet’.
Google loves these kinds of articles.
For two reasons:
- Readers love linking back to these kinds of useful articles, and Google loves real and organic backlinks (rather than bought)
- Google tracks how long people spend on your blogposts and how deep they scroll and because these articles are written as a list (and so long as they’re written well) they tick all the boxes Googling is looking for
If I can find this kind of linkable asset already ranking for a keyword I’m interested in, then I will use the ‘skyscraper’ technique that I learned from Brian Dean at Backlinko.
The Skyscraper technique works like this.
You find a high-ranking linkable asset and use it to build a bigger, better piece of content.
Here’s what Brian says:
“Have you ever walked by a really tall building and said to yourself: ‘Wow, that’s amazing! I wonder how big the eighth tallest building in the world is.’ Of course not. It’s human nature to be attracted to the best. And what you’re doing here is finding the tallest ‘skyscraper’ in your space… and slapping 20 stories to the top of it.”
Here are four ways Brian says you can ‘slap stories’ to the top and build your skyscraper:
- Make it longer
- Make it more up to date
- Make it better designed
- Make it more thorough
I write and publish a skyscraper article at least once a month.
#13 – Emailing to Win Backlinks for Your Skyscraper Article
Like I said, you can’t just publish your article and hope Google picks it up.
You gotta distribute it.
Brian has a neat hack that got him an 11% success rate on cold emails he sent out.
Here’s how it worked:
- Brian took notes of all the websites that were linking to one of his competitor’s linkable assets
- He then emailed these people and said his new article was ‘more thorough and up to date’
- He asked them to link back to it
From 160 emails like this he got 17 people to link back!
And this was just for one article.
The first page of Google has 10 results so you can use this exact same process to send cold emails out to all the websites with a backlink to any of the other 9 articles.
#14 – Guest Posting to Win Backlinks to Your Skyscraper Article
I work my way into search engines through guest posting.
I’ll find another blog in my market and ask if I can write a ‘guest post’ on their website – usually through email and including a couple examples of cool ideas I have.
If they say yes, I’ll write an article that includes a link or two to my own skyscraper articles.
It’s a great way to win high-quality backlinks for free!
I try to guest post at least once per week on blogs in my market and I work towards becoming a contributing author for sites that bring me the most traffic and quality links.
#15 – Advertising on Other Sites to Win Traffic to Your Website
A couple years ago I went on an eight-month journey to rank number 1 for the keyword ‘internet marketing’.
I got to position 4 on page 1 before another ‘Google slap’...
But while I was working on it I had an idea that made me ranking #1 irrelevant for me to start filling my funnels.
A lot of the sites ranking top weren’t actually selling any products.
So I began emailing a bunch of them and then negotiated deals to run banner ads and advertise my products on their top-ranking pages.
Within days I was displayed at the top of the websites I’d spent months trying to beat!
And then I discovered something amazing.
A click to my funnels from another website was more likely to convert as a click directly from Google because the traffic was more serious than someone just browsing the Internet.
BONUS TRAFFIC SECRET – Getting Paid Traffic to Your Skyscraper Articles
Another method I’ll use to get traffic to my blogposts before they rank is by promoting them on my social media pages (like my Facebook fan page) as well as my email lists.
These kinds of ‘white hat’ techniques are what Google loves.
So long as the content is good, you’ll start building up a good page score and make your page much more valuable to Google’s search spiders.
You’ll be rewarded on the ad spend in the long run!
PART 5 – YOUTUBE
There’s something really special about YouTube which not a lot of people realize.
YouTube is the only platform where your content grows over time.
Think about it:
- You post a Facebook Live and after a few days it’s gone forever from people’s feeds
- You post an Instagram Live and it’s gone in 24 hours
- You post any amount of videos on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and wherever else and soon it’ll be pushed to the bottom
But I have published videos to YouTube 5-10 years ago which still get hundreds of views a day.
This gives you so many reasons to spend time producing amazing videos that will serve your audiences for the rest of your lives.
If you know just a couple YouTube traffic secrets, they’ll be filling your funnels too.
#16 – YouTube Channel to Grow Your Subscribers
Here’s some thoughts on setting up your YouTube channel to win subscribers:
- Channel name – I suggest you choose your name based on branding instead of on keywords, e.g. I used Russel Brunson – ClickFunnels because I want people to build a personal connection to me too.
- About us page – here you should definitely continue your brand story but also focus on keywords at the same time, since the information you write here will show up in search results for your channel and will help people find you.
- Header image – The first thing people see on your channel is your header image, so it should speak to your target audience immediately.
- Profile image – Don’t put your logo here, put an image of you (I’ve seen this dramatically increase engagement).
- Channel trailer and description – YouTube lets you create an actual trailer for your channel, and it’s only shown to new visitors so make it count.
If you get a copy of my book Traffic Secrets I’ve got a script you can follow to help you create an engaging channel trailer.
The trailer is key not just for gaining subscribers, but also getting them into your funnels.
You can pick up the book here.
It’s free except for shipping and handling!
#17 – Creating Videos on YouTube
There are only two types of YouTube videos that I focus on.
They are:
- Discoverable videos
- Webinars
These are videos based on keyword phrases that I want to rank for, grab people’s attention and create more subscribers.
It’s really important that you structure these videos correctly.
Otherwise one of your videos could take off and gain 100k+ views – but do nothing for your subscriber count.
Here’s the script that I use for every discoverable video I create:
- Hook – Create a 15-second concise introduction, hooking people in and telling what they can look forward to.
- Trailer – After the hook, place a 4-5 second branded trailer.
- Intro – Tell your viewers who you are and why they should listen to you, don’t assume they know who you are.
- Story/Content – Share your main content or story for the next 7 to 12 minutes, and deliver the value you promised in your hook.
- Offer – Add your CTA, which could be asking people to like, comment, subscribe or turn on all notifications.
I’m not usually selling on these discoverable videos.
But building a subscriber base is key for when I’m creating webinar videos. I post these videos only for my subscriber base and I’m at home.
I use these videos to sell things and I’m not usually focused on any keywords here.
For these videos I’ll use the Perfect Webinar script, or the perfect Webinar Hack, or the Perfect Five-Minute Webinar.
You can print all these scripts out at the Traffic Secrets website here.
You can find a deeper dive into actually writing your YouTube video titles, finding keywords, creating thumbnails, adding tags and more in the book Traffic Secrets.
I’ve already bought a copy for you – just tell me where to ship it.
#18 – The Binge-Watching YouTube Hack
Here’s a cool hack I use to get people to binge-watch your videos.
YouTube loves it when it sees people going straight from one of your videos into another one and it will boat your videos across the entire platform.
So… how do you do it?
Instead of putting up a 30- or 60-minute video you can break it up into smaller 5-10 minute videos.
When someone watches one, they’re automatically sent to the next one.
You can do this by setting up a playlist inside your YouTube channel and then pushing the whole series out to your existing subscribers.
I try to create a new playlist at least once per month.
#19 – Collabs With Other YouTube Influencers
Similar to Instagram, you can do collabs with other YouTube channels.
For example I make a video with another influencer and have them post it to their channel with links pointing back to me.
Or I’ll do a swap.
I’ll post a video on my channel linking to them, and then they’ll post a video linking back to us.
There are lots of ways to make collabs work!
Sometimes I’ll swap a YouTube video for a podcast spot, or a blog – you just gotta be creative and make the collab a win-win.
#20 – Winning Extra Traffic on YouTube
A few years ago I bought a website called vygone.com.
I went on YouTube and found someone had bought the product and made a video that was getting hundreds of visits a day.
But… there were no links or even a description.
I called her and asked if I could pay to put a link in the description back to my website. She agreed and I still get hundreds of clicks each month to this day.
I’m sure you could find so many more ways to collab or ask someone to add links.
When you start thinking like this, there’s no limit to the creative methods you can use to win extra traffic using YouTube.
PART 6 – TRAFFIC YOU OWN
I’ve covered the major platforms I use to get traffic and fill my funnels with customers.
Below I’m going to share with you the blueprint I’m using.
But first… I wanted to talk about the concept of ‘traffic that you own’.
This is traffic that you’ve earned using all the methods above and then continue to push your new content or offers to – just without actually using any of the platforms we’ve just covered.
Let’s jump into two ways we’re doing this.
#21 – Emailing Your List
Your email list is traffic that you own.
It’s also one of our core distribution lists at ClickFunnels and all the other companies I run.
This is the list you’ll promote your new YouTube video or skyscraper article to as soon as they’re ready in order to stimulate their growth on each platform.
Typically your email list has the best relationship to you.
So having a sudden influx of people liking, viewing, sharing and commenting on your content will give you a huge boost and help the algorithms pick your content as the one to boost.
#22 – Desktop Push Notifications
You can also build a list using desktop push notifications.
You’ll often see websites ask readers if they want to receive these notifications while they’re browsing your website.
If you collect a list of people here, then you can instantly push out new blog posts and content to a list that’s hungry to consume more of what you’ve got to give.
PART 7 – PREPARING YOURSELF FOR NEW PLATFORMS
I said at the beginning of this post that you want to diversify your traffic streams.
So you might be thinking… “Russell, do I really need to be active on all of these platforms to be successful?”
The answer is usually ‘no’.
Often people will try to publish on all platforms and never get really great at any one of them, or their ad spend is so high they never reach profitability.
You should focus on just one of these platforms as your ‘primary’ channel.
This could be the platform you’re most familiar with or where you already have a following – whatever is easiest for you right now.
When I started ClickFunnels we only focused on Facebook at first, for example.
But as we grew…
It became profitable to grow on every other platform because we could build out a team dedicated to the task.
In fact, we even developed a 6-step blueprint to help us master each new platform.
#23 – The 6-Step ‘Fill Your Funnel’ Framework
Here’s a quick breakdown of our ‘Fill Your Funnel’ framework:
- Understand the history and goal of the new platform
You have to know how the platform started to know the kind of content that performs best and how to join the party. - Find and model your Dream 100
The next question is: who on this platform has already figured it out? You should only follow the people who are getting rewarded by the platform with tons of views or likes or shares. If you can create a list of Dream 100 accounts to follow who are also talking to ideal customers in your market, then you’ll learn how to get sales incredibly fast on the platform. - Identify the publishing strategy and create your publishing plan
Each platform has so many ways to publish content. It’s essential not just to understand this, but to create a weekly plan and stick to it. - Work your way in
Figure out how to get free, organic exposure to the audience of your Dream 100. Then work out how to get these people to join your lists and become traffic you own. - Buy your way in
To stimulate your growth as fast as possible combine organic content with paid ads. The best way to do this is to buy ads targeting the followers of your Dream 100 and get these people to join your lists and become traffic you own. - Fill your funnel
While you’re working to get organic and paid traffic you need to also convert that traffic into traffic you own. Then, you need to sell them your front-end products and start pushing them to ascend your value ladder.
I’m super excited to see how you use these 23 secrets I’ve revealed here to get traffic to your websites and your offers and your funnels.
Now, there’s a couple phrases above here you might not fully understand.
There’s not enough space to dig into your Dream 100 more or talk about your ‘value ladder’ in depth in this blog post
But if you’re hungry to learn how to get the highest converting traffic and then upsell these people through your funnels, I really recommend you check out my book Traffic Secrets.
I go really deep into all these concepts.
In fact, I think the book is so important to your success that I’ve already bought you a copy!
Just click to get Traffic Secrets for free (plus shipping & handling).
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